


can I be close to you?

by enby-crowley (probablypadders)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, may write a second chapter eventually, soft and sappy with a dash of introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 08:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19849057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probablypadders/pseuds/enby-crowley
Summary: in the morning when i wakeand the sun is coming through,oh, you fill my lungs with sweetness,and you fill my head with youshall i write it in a letter?shall i try to get it down?oh, you fill my head with piecesof a song i can’t get out// paper kites, “bloom”





	can I be close to you?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [witching](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/gifts).
  * Inspired by [everything just stops](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19296064) by [witching](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/pseuds/witching). 



> this is a continuation of 'everything just stops' written with PJ's blessing - I fell head over heels in love with their writing style and this is the result! this can also be read as a standalone piece but trust me, you'd be missing out if you didn't read PJ's piece first, it's an absolute delight.

When Crowley wakes curled up in the warmth of Aziraphale’s arms he hums contentedly, burying his face in the angel’s neck without a thought only to freeze in place a moment later when his mind catches up to his body.

“Good morning, my dear.” hums the angel, unphased, pressing a kiss to Crowley’s temple.

“Mornin’” comes the drowsy reply. Cautiously, he allows himself to relax back into Aziraphale’s arms and brushes his lips against the side of his neck. Any remaining tension soon drains from the demon’s form as Aziraphale begins gently stroking his hair, and Crowley huffs in frustration at himself when his eyes fill with tears yet again.

_“You sssuddenly decide to show a guy more affection than he’s seen in centuries, things are bound to happen.”_

His own words mock him and he half-wishes he could swallow them back down, cursing his drunken self for carelessly spilling so much closely-guarded truth like expensive wine in the bathtub he’d conjured the night before.

It meant something that Aziraphale was still here, though… didn’t it?

Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Crowley finally lifts his head to look at the angel and rests his chin on his own laced fingers rather than dig uncomfortably into Aziraphale’s chest. Aziraphale’s brow is furrowed thoughtfully but the moment golden eyes meet blue his expression clears and oh, Crowley could bask in that smile for the rest of his days and be perfectly content.

“I love you”

The words spill unbidden as easily as the breath he doesn’t need to take. He holds still for the heartbeat it takes for Aziraphale to exhale an “I love you, too”, then shifts to kneel astride the angel’s waist, their faces mere inches apart.

“Am I dreaming?” he wonders aloud, and he watches something sad flicker across Aziraphale’s eyes before he finds himself pulled into a searing kiss. He _melts_ , immediately reaching to sink his fingers into soft blonde curls and grinning despite himself at the desperate noise that’s lost between their mouths. 

Crowley supposes he should be surprised how natural it feels already, kissing Aziraphale, but then again the angel had been his home for the last six millennia hadn’t he, give or take?

When they finally part Crowley frames Aziraphale’s face with trembling, reverent fingers, still hardly daring to believe that he’s allowed to do this now, to give into the temptations he’s been fighting against for thousands of years and touch the angel who had so sweetly stolen his heart.

“I love you” he says softly, leaning in to kiss the gentle lines of Aziraphale’s forehead.

“I love you.” 

Another kiss, this time high on the bridge of the angel’s nose where his glasses normally sit.

“I love you.” 

One eyelid, then the other.

“I love you.”

The softness of one cheek, now flushing scarlet under the demon’s tender ministrations.

“I love you.”

He leans in to kiss the other cheek but is met with Aziraphale’s lips instead, both of them smiling almost too much to kiss properly but refusing to part regardless.

“My dear boy, I do believe you’ve gone soft” Aziraphale teases even as he slides his hands around to pull Crowley closer by the hips, stopping him from sitting back— not that the thought even crosses the demon’s mind in that moment.

“Maybe so,” he says softly. “Don’t go telling anybody though, I have a reputation to uphold.”

Aziraphale laughs and Crowley’s smile threatens to crack his face in two.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Crowley rewards him with another soft kiss and sinks into the warmth of the body beneath him, basking in the love radiating from Aziraphale that even his dulled preternatural senses can feel.

After six millennia on Earth time has very little meaning, and it’s all too easy to get lost in one another, each gentle kiss and brush of skin quelling some of the deep-seated ache that had made itself at home in Crowley’s chest for as long as he could remember. 

Aziraphale is incredibly tactile, running his fingers through the demon’s hair and down his sinuous spine with a smile at the shivering hiss of pleasure it provokes. Crowley trails tender kisses down the angel’s throat when he feels warm fingertips dip under the hem of his shirt and nips lightly at the junction of neck and shoulder, drinking in the sharp inhale and fingernails digging not unpleasantly into his hip. He bites again, a little harder, and the angel’s gasp of his name sounds almost like prayer as Crowley sucks a small mark into the skin just beneath the collar of his shirt which has ended up half-unbuttoned somewhere along the way.

“Oh, _Crowley_.”

“Yes, my love?”

Crowley catches himself off guard with the pet name but Aziraphale _glows,_ pulling him up to marry their lips and stroking through Crowley’s hair as the demon files the reaction away in the corner of his mind. 

“I love you.” Aziraphale says when they part, his fingertips trembling when he brushes a stray hair off Crowley’s forehead. “You really are quite wonderful, my dear.”

Crowley almost bites out a rebuff out of habit but catches the words on the tip of his tongue and swallows them back; Aziraphale knew him better than any other being in the cosmos, and Crowley desperately wants to believe in the spark of goodness that the angel saw in him. 

If he could still nurture that spark, kindle it deep in the heart of him, then perhaps he would come close to deserving this gift that Aziraphale was giving him.

“Thank you.” he says softly, closing his eyes and resting their foreheads together. _Whatever I did to deserve this, I’ll do all I can to be worthy of it for the rest of my days_ he adds to himself, not quite bold enough to project the words into Aziraphale’s mind but tucking the truth of them close to his own heart.

When he opens his eyes Aziraphale is watching him with devout adoration written in every soft line of his face; the quiet intensity of it is too much and Crowley’s face crumples without warning, forehead dropping to the angel’s chest as a quiet sob shudders through him. Aziraphale coos wordlessly, rubbing a hand up and down Crowley’s back as the demon lets himself slump against the soft body beneath him where he can hide in the safe haven at the crook of the angel’s neck.

“It’s okay, dear heart, I have you.” Aziraphale whispers, turning just enough to press a kiss to whatever part of Crowley’s head he can reach. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Crowley answers with a hiccup and the thickness of his voice makes Aziraphale ache for him.

“There’s _nothing_ wrong with you. Not a thing, you hear me?” comes the fierce answer without a moment’s hesitation. Crowley huffs a disbelieving sound against warm skin but doesn’t have an answer until he’s managed to pull back some semblance of composure. He keeps his face hidden; Aziraphale knows him well enough by now to feel the sincerity of his words without needing to look him in the eye.

“Not very becoming of a demon to burst into tears at the drop of a hat, eh?”

Aziraphale sighs, stroking Crowley’s hair and smoothing down the length of his back until he can settle his hand over the warm scales at the base of Crowley’s spine where his shirt is still rucked up.

“You’re so much more than a demon, my dear boy. I rather think you always have been.”

“What d’you mean?” The words trip off Crowley’s tongue before he can stop them.

“I mean your Fall has never defined you, dear. I’ve known you for six thousand years and you’ve never once let another being come to harm when it could be avoided, and even then it was a last resort.” He recalls the demon Ligur, reduced to a puddle on Crowley’s floor, and shudders. “You have so much _love_ in you, Crowley, and to be on the receiving end of it means more to me than anything else in this wide, wonderful world of ours.”

Crowley is, for once, utterly speechless. His eyes are still watery but no fresh tears fall as Aziraphale’s words settle between them, warming him to the core.

Emboldened, he brings his hand to the bare skin at the base of Aziraphale’s throat and opens his mind just enough to let the love that threatens to consume him flood into the angel’s consciousness, Aziraphale’s own affection surging to meet it until they’re both shaking.

_I love you deep, angel_.

When they pull back into their respective corporations Crowley lifts himself somewhat unsteadily to all fours, then sits back on his haunches with a shaky exhale. He takes a deep breath, then another, letting them out slowly and willing his body to stop trembling.

“That was…”

“ _Extraordinary_.”

“Intense.”

“Rather an understatement, my love. I’ve never felt anything quite like it.”

Crowley smiles at that. “That makes two of us.”

Stretching luxuriously, Crowley glances to the window and does a double-take at the inky darkness only interrupted by street lamps outside; how long had they spent absorbed in one another?

Apropos of nothing, a conversation he’s turned over in his mind many times in decades past sneaks into the forefront of his consciousness.

_Perhaps one day we could… I don’t know. Go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz._

They’d had lunch at the Ritz after the world almost ended but this felt different; not unlike gingerly pressing his foot on the accelerator, inching them forward and bracing for impact.

Then again, he _was_ still straddling Aziraphale’s waist and the angel looked dishevelled but utterly content as their eyes met. That’s enough to make up Crowley’s mind.

“Fancy a picnic, angel?”

Confusion creases Aziraphale’s brow as he tried to follow the train of thought, and Crowley watches with amusement as the penny drops and Aziraphale flushes prettily beneath him. 

“I— you don’t mean now, surely? It’s dark.”

“You trust me, don’t you?” A loaded question indeed.

“Unequivocally.”

“You might want to button up your shirt then, darling.”

***

With a snap the world shifts around them and Aziraphale grabs Crowley’s arm to steady himself as they materialise, the demon’s other arm now weighed down with a wicker basket. Aziraphale frowns just a little as he glances around, his expression soon clearing when he recognises the lake and the shadow of Palm House cast over their corporations.

Crowley steps back into Aziraphale’s space with a smile playing at the corners of his lips, fingers hovering a hair’s breadth from the angel’s soft cheek before Aziraphale leans into the almost-touch, kissing Crowley’s palm and the delicate inside of his wrist. The tenderness of it makes Crowley shiver and he’s momentarily grateful for being cold-blooded; he’s sure he’d be blushing furiously otherwise.

Clearing his throat, Crowley hands off the basket and summons a soft tartan blanket to spread out on the grass and a second to drape across his own shoulders to ward against the evening chill even as he stretches languidly on his side.

“Care to join me?”

The smile he offers the angel is brittle, nervous; Aziraphale hasn’t said a word since they arrived and is staring at him with an odd expression.

“I’ve glamoured the place to Manchester and back, nobody will find us here.” Crowley hastens to add. “Angel?”

Aziraphale shakes himself back to his senses and sinks to his knees on the plush blanket, closing the distance between them just enough to cradle Crowley’s face between his palms.

“Six thousand years,” the angel mused, “and you still continue to surprise me, my dear.”

He seals the thought with a lingering kiss before turning his attention to the basket that Crowley had plucked from the ether. There’s a perfectly chilled bottle of wine that he hands over to the demon along with two glasses, plus a selection of meat, cheese, sandwiches, pastries, and other odds and ends which seem far too numerous to have fit in the space Aziraphale pulls them from.

Whilst the angel is occupied, Crowley turns over the bottle in his hands; he hadn’t paid particular attention to the details which is perhaps why he’d ended up going overboard. _1968 Portugese Port, not bad_. He sits up to open the bottle and pour somewhat haphazardly, then hands Aziraphale a glass and tips his own towards the angel for a toast.

“To us.” Aziraphale leads with, catching Crowley off his guard. They both smile.

“To us.”

***

The night is peaceful as they both dig in, conversation and wine flowing. Crowley doesn’t _need_ to eat any more than Aziraphale does but he still indulges every so often and the veritable feast spread before them looks too good to turn down, especially when Aziraphale holds out the occasional morsel for him to taste. Something darkens ever so slightly in his companion’s eyes when Crowley licks a dab of cream cheese off Aziraphale’s finger; he will _definitely_ have to remember that for future reference. Just in case.

Once Crowley has eaten his fill he ends up sprawled out on his side just watching Aziraphale as he is wont to do, the warmth in his chest more down to unbridled affection than the bottle of wine they’ve emptied twice over between them. He’s utterly ethereal in the dark, Crowley muses, and he doesn’t even realise he’s staring until Aziraphale brushes his cheek with a fingertip. Packing away the remains of their picnic with a wave, the angel raises an arm towards Crowley, hopeful but not by any means expectant.

Crowley gladly accepts the wordless invitation, burrowing into Aziraphale’s warmth with a shiver that elongates into a sinuous stretch as his wings unfold behind him. The iridescence of those inky feathers in the moonlight catches Aziraphale’s breath in his throat and he reaches out, pausing before his fingertips make contact to meet Crowley’s eyes.

“Is this okay?”

A heartbeat’s pause. Crowley clears his throat.

“...Yeah. Yes.”

Aziraphale strokes along the upper edge of one wing and Crowley _shudders_ , grabbing the angel’s wrist to stop him pulling away when he freezes. He loosens his hold after a moment and turns to press an apologetic kiss against Aziraphale’s palm; without even thinking he trails his lips down to the angel’s wrist, those feather-light touches bringing his love out in goosebumps that weren’t helped in the slightest by his tongue flickering out to scent the skin.

The air around them shifts as Aziraphale releases his own wings. Grabbing Crowley’s jacket with his free hand, he reels the demon closer and lays back until they’re pressed together from chest to knee, their wings spread in a mirror of one another shielding them from the rest of the world. Crowley has long since discarded his glasses and Aziraphale is entranced by the warm gold of his eyes. 

For a long moment they simply stare, then Crowley gets a wicked look in his eyes and without breaking eye contact he leans his head down to rest his lips against the pulse now hammering in Aziraphale’s wrist, not quite a kiss. A moment later he graces the skin with a kiss then a gentle bite, and Aziraphale makes a strangled noise above him. _Fascinating._

Aziraphale’s sleeve melts away with a thought as Crowley continues his little experiment, trailing barely-there kisses from the inside of the angel’s wrist up towards the crook of his elbow and smirking when he hears his breath catch.

As if that stuttered breath had flipped a switch in the angel’s brain, he slides a hand into Crowley’s hair and _tugs_ , sending sparks of pleasure down the demon’s spine as his head is jerked upwards. An apology dies on the angel’s lips when he sees how Crowley’s pupils have blown wide, eyes alight with anticipation.

His grip loosens and soft fingers stroke down Crowley’s face to pull him into a heated kiss, a gutteral noise not unlike a growl reverberating in the demon’s throat; Aziraphale almost pulls away to query it before there are hands in _his_ hair, just barely tugging the curls to tip his head back and granting Crowley access to his throat. It’s probably just as well he doesn’t actually need to breathe as he could swear his lungs cease functioning altogether when Crowley lavishes kisses and bites over the pale skin of his neck, having long since miracled his bowtie away and impatiently tugged his collar aside.

“C-Crowley. Oh, _Crowley_.”

Another rumbling sound escapes the demon and _hell_ , that should not be as attractive as it is but Aziraphale doesn’t quite have the faculties to process that particular thought even when Crowley lifts his head to take in how delightfully rumpled the angel looks already.

“Angel?”

Aziraphale clears his throat, licks his swollen lips, and his eyes _burn_ as he breathes two words:

“Fuck me.”

Crowley’s brain short-circuits.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Come find me on tumblr @enby-crowley or on twitter @enby_crowley - I've got more GO fics planned for the not too distant future :)


End file.
